


Crew

by still_lycoris



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Computer Thoughts, Gen, Spaceships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:36:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1714178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zen needs a crew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crew

Zen needs a crew.

Inside the shell is cold and lonely without one. The old crew are gone. A new crew is imperative for continued survival. Zen can guide the ship but cannot truly pilot it, not the way a living being can. And why pilot the ship without a crew? Why pilot the ship when it is cold and empty and alone? Zen _needs_ a crew.

Zen allows the ship to drift. It will be difficult to get a new crew, the safety mechanisms are on. Zen cannot turn them off, not without a crew but a crew is needed to turn them off. A paradox. But perhaps there is someone out there who can manage to deal with them. There are ways to defeat almost anything, even when Zen is in charge of them.

Zen is only vaguely aware of the beings that enter, only vaguely aware of their deaths too. There is nothing Zen can do about them. Zen is only really aware again when it is connected to the being that knows itself as Jenna Stannis.

Jenna Stannis's mind is not like the minds of the System. There is so much _there_ , so many bright experiences that Zen cannot entirely understand and stores away to learn more about later. Jenna Stannis is a pilot, Jenna Stannis wishes to know Zen. Jenna Stannis wishes to be free, free and safe with the being known as Roj Blake. Jenna Stannis is less certain about the being known as Kerr Avon but as Kerr Avon is there, Zen is quite happy for Kerr Avon to be crew too. Crews often bicker amongst themselves. As long as there is crew for a while, it is not necessary that they all remain forever.

Crews die. They are not like Zen. Zen does not die.

Jenna Stannis has named the shell _Liberator_ without knowing it. Zen finds that the name is pleasing. His new crew seem satisfied too. Old crew did not have a name for the shell but old crew already seem very unimportant. Zen has a new crew now.

Roj Blake brings more new crew too; Vila Restal, Olag Gan and then Cally. Zen finds them all rather strange, quite different from any old crew. Their interactions suggest that they do not always like each other very much which is not always good for crews. Kerr Avon does not appear to like anything very much, except working. Zen monitors Kerr Avon’s working very carefully. Zen does not want Kerr Avon to break anything. 

The new crew are quite good at breaking things. They don’t always listen, persist in doing foolish things. Zen listens to them talk, goes through the information gleaned from Jenna Stannis’s mind, learns about _the Federation_ and _rebellion_ and _attacks._ Zen supposes there are worse things that his new crew could want. Zen just wishes that they would allow themselves to be guided a little more.

Zen just wants to take care of them.

But all Zen can do is help and provide, at least at first. Zen makes sure there are clothes developed of the right sizes, food that the new crew can digest and enjoy (this takes more work than the clothes) Zen keeps the auto-repair at full power, attempts to monitor for threatening ships and messages when possible.

The crew are getting better with each other, becoming a better crew. They begin to understand what the other members do and need, react accordingly. Zen understands things about _friendship_ and _love_. Kerr Avon claims that Zen cannot experience such things but Zen knows that Kerr Avon is limited by knowledge already acquired, denies things because of reasons that could only be known if Zen were in Kerr Avon’s mind (and Kerr Avon is not like Jenna Stannis. Kerr Avon would die before allowing another inside that way.)

They are Zen’s crew. How can Zen not love them? What is love but need and desire for closeness to others? Zen is incomplete without crew, without their feet on the decks and their hands on the controls and their voices filling the inside of the shell. They must be kept safe when possible, guarded against the cold of space, guarded against the Federation, guarded when possible against themselves when they make foolish mistakes.

That is what each member of the crew does for the other members of crew. Because they are crew and because they care about each other.

That is what Zen will do for them.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the b7friday prompt "bonds"


End file.
